Everything I'm Cracked Up to Be: A Rock & Roll Fairy Tale
by Jen Trynin
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jen TryninEdition: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2007-02-05
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Harvest Books
Book Reviews of Everything I'm Cracked Up to Be: A Rock & Roll Fairy Tale
Book Review: tales of musical dinosaur days from a stone age survivor
Summary: 5 Stars
Jennifer Trynin figured out how to write songs. She taught herself how to self-market. She acquired the skill to play a mean guitar and write a great song hook. She even figured out how to self-release and market on her own small label. She exploded out of the Boston scene the halcyon 1990s, the last pre-ice-age cambrian era of the large record companies. With a deft self-deprecating comic tone, and a satisfying sardonic attention to detail, she shares with the reader what it's like to get on the major-label merry-go-round. She also shares what it's like to fail to grasp the brass ring.
This book covers familiar ground about the problems with the modern music industry. Yet the book is anything but banal. Jen's first-person account comes of as witty rather than whiny. Through the narrative, e follow Jen from the clubs to an absurdly over-the-top bidding war through the exit of the carnival from her own musical small town. Jen's characters are delightfully drawn, hovering in a modern space between Dickensian and Waugh-esqe. The roman a clef nature of the music industry folks portrayed gives one a bit of fun in guessing, but the feel here is not "insider's tell-all" but instead
a very human, often amusing and ultimately poignant story about fame, desire and flirtation in their many forms. The narrative style is down-to-earth,
fast-paced, and yet completely professional.
Jen provides a great deal of detail about how record deals worked in that era. She uses literary license to create a satisfying blur over a few personal details, without over-flogging her story through needless Peyton Place gimmickry.
Jen wisely lets a few questions linger in the ether, unanswered. Had her records sold, would this book have been written at all? Had she been "pure", and signed with an indie label, how might that have been different? [ironically, the days I finished this book coincided with a local radio interview of one of the fellows from Husker Du, bringing to mind the Husker Du/SST Records fiasco]. Had she allowed the record company marketing machine a 'free hand', would she have sold more records? She spots the issues, but does not try to give rancorous hindight roadmaps to the star homes of her departed fame.
As a netlabel co-owner who releases my own music under Creative Commons licenses, it would be easy to write a screed along the lines of "this is why we share music rather than market it". That would be too easy. I'd rather say that this writer understands that her own choices and desires put her on this mystery train to fame. Yet, as in the 70s song, there are no trains to Heaven, as the kingdom lies within.
Jennifer Trynin's book is a must-read. I'm delighted to have discovered it.
Summary of Everything I'm Cracked Up to Be: A Rock & Roll Fairy Tale
It was 1994: post?Liz Phair, mid?Courtney Love, just shy of Alanis Morissette. After seven years of slogging it out in the Boston music scene, Jen Trynin took a hard look at herself and gave ?making it? one last shot.
It worked. Suddenly Trynin became the spark that set off one of the most heated bidding wars of the year. Major labels vied for her, to the tune of millions of dollars in deals. Lawyers, managers, and booking agents clamored for her attention. Billboard put her on the cover. Everyone knew she was the Next Big Thing. But then she wasn?t.
In a series of dizzying, hilarious, heartbreaking snapshots, Trynin captures what it?s like to be catapulted to the edge of rock stardom, only to plummet back down to earth. Everything I?m Cracked Up to Be is the story of a girl who got what she wished for?and lived happily ever after anyway.
In a series of dizzying, hilarious, heartbreaking snapshots, Trynin captures what it?s like to be catapulted to the edge of rock stardom, only to plummet back down to earth. Everything I?m Cracked Up to Be is the story of a girl who got what she wished for?and lived happily ever after anyway.
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